Page 9 of The Teras Trials

5

LESSON FIVE

The sky is red as the rising sun bleeds across the horizon. The sunrise here is not bright but gloomy and unsettling. Night still clings to the sky.

I make the horse gallop until it tires. The road we travel is one long stretch of pale upturned earth. Sprigs of grass suffocate at its edge under a growing pile of snow. Sometimes there are no trees for many minutes. Other times they are bunched together and peppered with white. Always, a sturdy breeze howls, an ocean wind carried far to reach me.

When I see the first bit of blood, I slow the horse to a trot. There’s a long trail of it, leading through a snowy, tree-lined road. A dismembered foot lies further down the path. I ready my gun. The horse refuses to go any further; she stamps beneath me, breathing hard. I dismount and tie her to a tree. Before sense or nerves get the better of me, I force myself down the path. I stay low and quiet. My footfalls are a half-muffled crunching. After each step, I tense and wait for a sound. Nothing comes but I don’t feel alone.

I am just starting to breathe easy when the Calling sounds. Another wail goes out, pulsing and waning. Then, somewhere in the distance, I hear a response. A waking moan. It echoes out over the plains, the hollow cry of some ancient thing waking up to stretch. I freeze and search through the trees for the shape of it. Nothing. No sign of anything slouching towards me.

I don’t know whether to run or not. I whisper Thad’s name, but I can’t bring myself to shout it. Instead, I creep forward until the metallic smell of blood is everywhere. I see bodies. The smell has already settled in the snow, dug deep, made roots there. A foul and lingering thing, like fish that’s been long-forgotten and half-cooked in the sun. I gag and pull my shirt high over my nose, but it does little to suppress the stench.

And then I see him.

“Thad. . .”

He’s half collapsed against a tree. Sweat pools on his brow. Just by looking at him, I know he has a fever; skin scalding as his body panics over the wound. It doesn’t quite hit me, what I’m seeing. I must stand there for a full minute uninterrupted before it registers that he’s clutching his gut. I see the blood. I know his stomach is open. Holes puncture his shoulder. He is alive, but he is dead at the same time. Only a matter of time.

I don’t know what to do.

When I stumble forward, he rouses. It’s not an easy waking. He cocks the gun and aims it at me in a rush.

I wait for his eyes to soften in recognition, but he doesn’t budge. My skin goes cold.

“What the fuck are you doing here?”

I frown. There’s no relief in his voice. He sounds angry. Disappointed. Even in this, he’s found a reason to hate me.

My hands are shaking. I long for a cigarette. Scoffing, pretending like he doesn’t affect me, I say, “Your party came back decimated. No one could tell me if you were alive or not.” After a beat when he says nothing, I move towards him. “What did you want me to do? Leave you here?”

“Yes!” he hisses. “Yes, you fool. I’m dead already.”

“You’re alive.”

He pulls his hand away. I see a bloody intestine and flinch. “I am dead,” he says slowly. “And you have condemned our mother to this very same fate.”

I freeze at that. “You’re a bastard.” It comes out a whisper.

“And you are barely a man.”

Part of me wants to leave, but how will I live knowing those are the last words he says to me? “I came out here, didn’t I? I came to get you, because I know you think I won’t pass admissions. And if I don’t, you’ll be around to take care of mother.”

Finally, emotion breaks through. His eyebrows twist up. He blinks rapidly. I hate it. I hate seeing this. When he’s like this, he is not Thaddeus the man. He is eleven, and I am six, and nothing bad has ever happened to us.

“Cass, we both know I’m not going to make it.”

“Get up,” I say. I go to loop my arms under his to pull him to standing. He groans in a way that sounds like a creaking ship. I hear the pain in it. He is biting back a howl. A rush of blood dribbles from between his fingers and I drop him with a cry not of pain but of despair.

“Please,” I say. I don’t know who I’m saying that for.

Over the high howl of the wind, we hear something that makes us go silent. A deep, booming cry: it echoes in my bones, shakes the very core of me. I feel the thunderclap of a heartbeat in my chest. Thad tells me to run, and I do, because I’m weak. I dart to the other side of the road and press up against a tree to watch.

Something comes crashing through the bushes beside me. I go still as it passes me. Either the blood of our conversation drew it here. In the growing light, I catch sight of the curved edge of its body. It is a serpent, as high as my navel. On either side of its head protrude two ram-like horns. Cerastes.

Thaddeus trains his gun on it, but it doesn’t strike him. Instead, it starts to bury its head in the dirt.

That is a strategy, I remember that much from my books. The cerastes often acts as prey, as a way to kill its food — but also as a defence.

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